1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to vehicle illumination, more particularly to specific illumination emitted by a vehicle that inhibits flash photography of a vehicle.
2. Background Description of the Prior Art
Periodical publications and other news media pay large amounts of money for photographs of celebrities and other persons. One of the few locations unavoidable, and directly accessable to the public, is travel in a vehicle on public streets, roads, etc. Photographers determined to obtain valuable photographs of celebrities can do so by pursuing these persons as they travel public thoroughfares in their vehicles. Inherently the extent to which the photographers pursue celebrities and the extent to which celebrities attempt to avoid the photographers, can produce dangerous and fatal results.
Using a specific flash photography method, photographers may, take pictures of the person or celebrity they seek, traveling in a vehicle. The method they use is simple; their camera's use a polarizing lens to remove the glare and reflections from the vehicle windows that would normally interfere considerably with the taking of a photograph. Since the interior of a vehicle is somewhat dark and use of this polarizing lens tends to further darken a picture. The photographer usually requires further illumination of the vehicle's interior, allowing the picture and subject to have sufficient exposure. A photographer may provide adequate illumination of their subjects, by the use of a photoflash aimed at the celebrity or person on the interior of the vehicle, as the exposure of the picture begins.
However, with all of the resourses available to these often very wealthy celebrities, no device is presently known which inhibits photographers from taking unwanted pictures of these celebrities or other persons in their vehicles on public thoroughfares. In the absence of such technology, the Congress of the United States of America has also considered legislation which might reduce this type of predatory photography.
Short duration, high power vehicle lighting has been in use and known for many years, such as in strobe lighting to illuminate emergency vehicles. Some of the more recent devices for vehicle illumination is the neon license plate illuminator of Chen U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,091 and Gonzalez U.S. Pat. No 5,255,166; which both illustrate the use of a neon or other gas lamp tube to illuminate a vehicle license plate for night driving. Whatever the precise merits, features and advantages of the above cited references, none of them achieves or fulfills this invention's objective of hindering or inhibiting unwanted photographs of a vehicle or its occupants, using flash photography.